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Conflict induced displacement, as we all know, is an all too common reality in the world today. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute there were 15 major armed conflicts active in 15 locations around the world in 2010. (Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen, “Appendix 2A. Patterns of major armed conflicts, 2001–10,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, www.sipri.org/yearbook/2011/02/02A. Accessed July 29, 2011) It is relevant to note that the “United Nations defines a “Major War” as military conflicts inflicting 1,000 battlefield deaths per year.” (GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html. Accessed July 28, 2011) Most of the armed conflicts in the world today constitute intrastate or non-international armed conflicts and they exact a high gruesome toll in civilian causalities. GlobalSecurity.org points out that today “75 percent or more of those killed or wounded in wars are non-combatants.” (GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html. Accessed July 28, 2011) This is a staggering statistic.

The cost and consequence of war is perhaps most evident in the African continent that has seen no less than 20 major civil wars since 1960 such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, Angola, Sudan, Liberia, and Burundi. (GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html. Accessed July 28, 2011) And, of course, currently, in Libya, that is resulting in large numbers of conflict induced migrants in Egypt and Tunisia. The impact of these wars in Africa has had devastating effects on the land, the wild life, and its people. “Food production is impossible in conflict areas, and famine often results. Widespread conflict has condemned many of Africa's children to lives of misery and, in certain cases, has threatened the existence of traditional African cultures.” (GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html. Accessed July 28, 2011) ... [ read more ]

The ongoing armed conflicts taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in extraordinary numbers of refugees in Syria, estimated at 1.2 to 1.4 million, Jordan, with an estimate of 500,000 to 600,000, and Lebanon, with estimates of 20,000 to 30,000. (Anne Evans Brown, “Realizing Protection Space for Iraqi Refugees: The UNHCR in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Research Paper 167, UNHCR Policy Development and Evaluation Service, January 2009, p. 1, www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=4981d3ab2&query=Iraqi Refugees. Accessed July 28, 2011)

Intrastate or civil wars are particularly vile and atrocious, given they are based typically on racial, ethnic, or religious animosities and frequently accompanied by ideological fervor. (GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html. Accessed July 28, 2011) These present, inevitably, conditions that are rife for potential violations of not only fundamental human rights but to international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Rabid genocidal attacks of one ethnic group against another, the forcible recruitment into the armed units of combatant forces of men, women and children, indiscriminate attacks against non-military targets, and the use of terrorists tactics to instill fear in the general population are all too common features of modern armed conflict. It is evident that the fortunes of war can swing widely from one side to the other and can lead often to situations where the perpetrator becomes the persecuted, the violator the victim or vice versa. As history has amply demonstrated the state of war, lawful or not, can degenerate rapidly to an environment of uncontrolled and unrestricted extreme violence that is ripe for the most abject brutality and inhumanity.

The United Nations was established in 1945* with the principal objective to eliminate the “scourge of war” through the protection of individual and group human rights (See the Preamble of the United Nations Charter at www.un.org/en/documents/charter/preamble.shtml. Accessed July 28, 2011), and that also recognized the necessity of bringing to justice those who violated a person’s universal personal and collective human rights. This is not only evident in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights at Article 14(2) but, of course, the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees at Article 1F(a). In essence, these international instruments state that refugees cannot benefit from the protection of the 1951 Convention if there are serious reasons for considering that they are guilty of war crimes, crimes against peace, or crimes against humanity. Can those who perpetrate such gross and despicable crimes in situations of extreme violence, then, be given the benefits of the rights of a person who has genuinely a well-founded fear of being persecuted? The consensus that was reached amongst the original States Parties that negotiated the 1951 Convention was that they could not and, thus, should be excluded from the status of Convention refugees. In simple terms, then, those who persecute others, that is, inflicting the most serious and severest forms of human rights breaches and/or that deny the most basic respect possible to a person’s human dignity should not be given the benefits of the status of refugees and the human rights guarantees that accrue from such status when they have wrenched and denied these essential human rights and the common decency and respect for human dignity from others.

Accordingly, given the prevalence of armed conflict, whether international or non-international, and the potential of serious and grotesque crimes being committed in these states of extreme violence, and the resulting conflict induced forced migration, the necessity of conducting an assessment, when the facts warrant it, of deciding whether someone ought to be excluded from refugee status under the 1951 Convention and its 1967Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and the Statute of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees becomes self-evident.

The purpose of the War Crimes and Refugee Status Conference that will be held at York University on August 16th is multifold and/or manifold. It is intended to bring together noted States and international organization scholarly practitioners, legal scholars and academics to examine in detail the current state and practice of the exclusion provisions under Article 1F(a) of the 1951 Convention and its 1967Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. It is further intended to report on the recent findings of various research projects that are currently ongoing on Article 1F(a), within academe, international organizations, and States Parties to international refugee law instruments. It is intended to examine the most recent jurisprudence of the senior appellate courts in leading jurisdictions in the field of international refugee law. And, it is intended to explore possible future applications and interpretations of the exclusion clauses and, specifically, Article 1F(a), given current developments and trajectories in the application and interpretation of Article 1F(a), principally, by the asylum granting industrialized countries within the Global North.

Our War Crimes and Refugee Status Conference builds on our international Research Workshop that was held at York University on May 17th, 2010, that reported on the progress of the War Crimes and Refugee Status Research Project, under the direction of Professor James C. Simeon, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University, and Kate Jastram, Faculty of Law, University of California at Berkeley, successful co-applicants who were awarded funding under the SSHRC International Opportunities Fund (IOF) grant. For information on the War Crimes and Refugee Status Research Project please visit the War Crimes and Refugee Status Research Workshop website at www.yorku.ca/wcrs/. Accordingly, the War Crimes and Refugee Status Conference will present a progress report on this IOF funded research project and the preliminary findings from this international comparative five country empirical jurisprudential study.

This will be followed by a panel on the most recent case law trends in Article 1F(a) from both a Canadian and international perspective from Nancy Weisman, Legal Counsel, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, and Joseph Rikhof, Legal Counsel, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Unit, Justice Canada.

The afternoon will feature two panels. The first will examine the UNHCR Guidelines with respect to the application of Article 1F(a). Professor Jennifer Bond, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, has kindly agreed to make a presentation on the guidance that the UNHCR has provided over the years on the application and interpretation of the exclusion clauses.

The conference will conclude with a wide ranging panel that will explore the future of Article 1F(a) and that features three distinguished practitioners in the field from a number of different jurisdictions and organizations. Dominic Laferriere, Manager, Security and Intelligence Unit, Canada Border Services Agency, Ward Lutin, Programme Officer, IGC, Geneva, Switzerland, and Afke Siezen, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Migration Policy Department, The Netherlands, will offer their analysis and insights into how selected States Parties are applying the exclusion clauses and what the likely trends are for future developments in the interpretation of Article 1F(a).

All four panel sessions will be followed by questions from the conference participants with ample time for a general round of discussion with the presenters and participants. We are most fortunate to have as our Conference Chairperson, Professor Emeritus Howard Adelman, York University, and the founding Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS), and who’s broad, extensive, and sustaining contribution to the field of refugees and forced migration studies is second to none.

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*United Nations Day is celebrated every year on October 24th to commemorate when the United Nations was officially established on October 24, 1945.